Did you know that today is the 'Old New Year'?!
No? I didn’t either, until this morning when I heard Rabbi Harvey Belovski's ‘Pause for Thought’ on Radio 2:
According to the old Julian calendar (that's the calendar Julius Caesar introduced over 2000 years ago and which the UK used for about 1700 years), today, January 14th, would actually be the start of the new year. 🤯
We now use the Gregorian calendar which is more accurately aligned with the solar year, but ‘Interesting Fact Number 2’ is that when the UK adopted it in 1752, they simply wiped 10 days off the calendar and jumped straight from Wednesday 2nd September to Thursday 14th September - not surprisingly, this resulted in outrage and riot (especially for those people who'd missed their birthdays in between, I'd imagine!)
Anyway, hearing that today is 'Old New Year', I felt that I’d been sent a lifeline!
It's not been the greatest start to 2020 for me so far: firstly, my overworked computer decided that it needed a 10 day 'rest' (AKA crash and complicated, protracted reset); and secondly, my car decided that it didn't like where I'd parked it at school pick up and that it would be far happier down the hill... in a Mercedes! 🤦🏼♀️
Of course, neither problems were life-threatening (fortunately!) and they absolutely fall into the category of first world problems, but it still didn't feel like the most promising start to the year. As it is additionally the start of a new decade, this new year appeared to take on even greater significance and I was beginning to feel as if I’d blown the prospects of all of the coming 10 years in less than 10 days!
Complete overreaction, of course. However, I do feel like I’ve been given a second chance today.
That’s not to say that I’m suddenly going to put undue pressure on myself to do make any radical changes, to give up chocolate (my ultimate vice) or set myself very admirable but unrealistic goals of running miles every week to mark today’s Old New Year. Instead, I am going to remind myself that even frustrating problems can be overcome with time and focus (and enough calming cups of tea), and that any time can be your time to start afresh.
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Is anyone else out there keen to start the new year today too?
Or have you had a brilliant start to 2020?
Either way, I’d love to hear from you.
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If you'd like to hear this brain baffling fact explained in more detail for yourself, listen to Radio 2’s ‘Pause for Thought’ at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p080dx1l